Koltsovo International Airport (managed by Airports of Regions MC) has reviewed performance results for the first six months of 2021. In H1 2021 the airport’s passenger traffic reached 2 million 420 thousand travellers, down 16% as compared to a similar period of pre-pandemic 2019. On the other hand, the figure is 85% higher than for H1 2020. Most passengers, more specifically 2,209,000 customers, used domestic flights inside Russia.
The main trend in H1 2021 was growing passenger traffic on interregional flights and sinking traffic to Moscow and overseas destinations, compared to the pre-pandemic period. Thus, passenger traffic on international routes sagged by 77% compared to January-June 2019.
Meanwhile, the number of passengers on domestic flights increased by 12%, while interregional traffic on routes bypassing Moscow showed a 40% surge. The main factor behind such a significant growth in direct interregional traffic was robust development of the route network by Red Wings, one of Koltsovo’s core carriers, with support of Sverdlovsk Region’s government.
The top five most popular destinations for domestic flights were Moscow, Sochi, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar and Simferopol. The most popular international destinations included Antalya, Yerevan, Osh, Larnaca and Dushanbe.
Overall, flights from Koltsovo in H1 2021 were operated by 35 airlines on 104 routes, including scheduled flights to 57 destinations in Russia and 10 – to near- and far-abroad destinations.